by Sax Rohmer
“Your baggage is already in your room, Doctor,” he said. “Directly Anubis awakes he will see you. If you will be good enough to follow Yamamata . . .”
A Japanese manservant had appeared.
Presently, having made certain arrangements for a later meeting with Dr. Schreiber:
“I've got to see the Englishman,” I explained. “What room is he in?”
I remembered that M. Nestor was absent-minded. The second Watch master was genial ... Is it sufficient? Here I am. And here—name of a good little man!—it appears to me I remain!
Three hopes we have, Woodville: First—Lonergan. Where is he? Second—myself. It is not known yet that I have left the crystal coffin! Third—Anubis. He is sleeping!
CHAPTER XXIII - ANUBIS SLEEPS
1
“With such a dial as you describe in our possession, Woodville, why should we . . .”
I produced the little apparatus.
“Good God! Let’s get out of here!”
“I am all for it! Demonstrate, my friend.”
With nervous fingers I moved the indicator until that hieroglyphic resembling an Arab A occupied the open space. There was a moment of tense silence, then:
“Listen!”
The elevator was ascending!
“Quick! We are perhaps going to our death—but what does it matter? If we stay, death is coming to us! Show me how I recall the lift . . . wait for me below.”
It was soon done. I saw the panel slide up. I stepped into the car. Silently I said good-bye to the watching Gaston Max. . . . Below, the great hall was empty—except for one of the Black Watch posted before that door which led to the laboratory and the apartments of Anubis.
I waited. The panel closed behind me—and I heard the lift reascending.
A few moments later, Max joined me.
“We must be greatly daring,” he whispered. “I shall become, in voice, M. Nestor.”
I nodded.
“Your anxiety is very natural, Mr. Woodville,” Max went on (his imitation of the dead man amazed and startled me). “Come right along. I expect your friend Lonergan is with Richter.”
Confidently he walked toward the Black Watch 1 If this elevator automatically stopped at the laboratory, he could know no more than I knew . . . nor if the giant guard would give us passage . . .
We were within three paces of this monster when it lowered the mace crashingly, stepped aside and revealed that opening in the wall which I knew!
“Go right ahead, Woodville,” Max directed in the voice of Nestor. “Wait for me.”
I entered. In darkness I moved up. Light came. I stepped out. . . .
This was the top of the staircase which once I had climbed! The elevator, this time, had brought me higher! Below, to the right, lay steps bathed in apparent moonlight; above, was the iron grille and the gaping pit. Before me, unguarded, I saw the opening in the wall and the short passage leading to the laboratory.
I heard the elevator going down.
A silence absolutely complete reigned about me. I stood still. I listened.
Two—five—ten—fifteen seconds passed. ... I heard the elevator ascending. I turned.
Max stepped out.
“Come this way, sir,” he directed, and walked along the corridor. “We’ll soon find Mr. Lonergan.” Holding myself strictly in hand, I followed. I entered the laboratory. Across a maze of apparatus I saw the third chemist, Herr Richter. He was bending over that circular table which enabled the creatures of Felsenweir to watch the surrounding roads. He looked up.
“Hullo, Doctor! You are back early. Where are Sir Rathbone, Professor Dimes, and . . .”
“Following. I brought home-news for our friend, here, and for Mr. Lonergan, too. Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Herr Richter answered. “But I am glad you returned. I saw you arrive. Come and look. The roads below are curiously busy! I have put down Zone 3.”
Max turned to me.
“Be very careful,” he advised. “But I’ve warned you before. Follow me closely.”
We bent over that wonderful panorama.
I suppressed an exclamation.
The roads surrounding Felsenweir were animate with tiny figures!
“What do you make of it?”
Max considered the picture, then:
“Trouble!” he announced laconically.
Mentally, I sat at the feet of this master of his art; who, aided only by dim lighting and a self-possession unparalleled in my experience, carried out his monstrous illusion with the audacity of a Houdini.
“To wake Anubis before midnight,” Herr Richter went on, “would be fatal. He has not slept for over eighty hours. Dawn comes early. And we can laugh, after dawn!”
Max stood upright and spoke—but kept his back to Richter.
“Listen. I'll take charge.”
“Excellent, Doctor! I am greatly obliged. I, also, am overtired, as you know.”
“Go and sleep. I’ll have you called ten minutes before twelve.”
“You take a great responsibility—tonight.”
“I’m taking it! We need to be fresh. All set?”
“Only too glad! I am dreadfully sleepy. Zone 3 is down, and you know that the control tower is cut off? Don’t move anything. Anubis is sleeping there. He will remain now at Central Control until the moment. . . . The injection at midnight also you should remember. . . .”
“The Frenchman?”
“Yes.”
“Good-night.”
“Good-night, Doctor.”
Gaston Max peered down again at those busy roads mirrored minutely upon opaque glass. Richter, silent in rubber soles, went away.
“They are acting,” he murmured. “After all, these Germans are efficient! We are surrounded, my friend! Witness, before you, the authority of my Surete Generale even in Germany! One thing only I doubt. Troops are bringing up a Krupp gun, resembling our own .75. Can they possibly get it placed upon the Devil’s Elbow in time?”
“What!”
“The control tower, Woodville! A perfect target. . . and the brain of Felsenweir!”
2
In a small room adjoining the laboratory I looked down upon Dr. Nestor in his crystal coffin. The thing lay in partial shadow, so that only the dead man’s face was lighted.
So startling was his resemblance—sans moustache and with his dark hair rearranged—to Gaston Max, that I gasped, and stared.
“Fate,” said my companion, drawing on white overalls over his dinner kit. “Nearly, the poor M. Nestor was my double. This, my friend, is ‘as it was written.’ So Moslems say. They are very wise. It is not meant that the world should end yet.” Suddenly, he resumed the voice of the dead man; and: “No, sir!” he added.
I dragged my gaze away from that ghastly thing.
“One point worries me. Where is Lonergan?”
“Mr. Lonergan is a clever man. Wherever he is, he is somewhere useful. Another point worries me! This point is: Since the Brotherhood of Anubis runs to timetable, what will happen when Sir Rathbone Edwardes, Professor Dimes, and Kluen Yung of Hankow realize that M. Nestor has missed his appointment?”
“They will come direct to Felsenweir.”
“I agree. But before they arrive, my friend, we must be gone!”
“How?”
Gaston Max, so ghastly a double of the dead man that I shuddered as I watched him, shrugged his shoulders in a way that was not that of the late Dr. Nestor.
“This,” he confessed, “is a small matter I have so far found myself unable to clear up!”
“Even if the gun is got there in time-” I cried.
“Ssh!”
I lowered my voice.
“We shall-”
“We shall have saved millions of lives,” Max interrupted simply. “For me, such an end would be sublime!”
3
Two problems held my mind: (a) Lonergan had joined Marusa in some plan. What? (b) Where were they?
Max, before
the small mirror, was adjusting his simple but surprisingly effective make-up. He was now clad in white overalls. The illusion was complete —hideous. A dead man lived again.
At risk of that mysterious espionage which we knew to be a feature of Felsenweir, we talked—but in tones low-pitched.
And at what point of our conversation a newcomer entered the room I cannot say.
Some slight sound brought me sharply about.
Marusa was standing in the doorway!
I ran to her.
She was dressed as I had last seen her. But, now, her face looked unnaturally pale. As I put my arms around her:
“What is this?” I heard from Max.
“You are mad!” Marusa whispered to me . . . but, though it meant destruction, I think she was glad of this madness of mine.
She drew back, and faced the speaker.
“I want a word with Mr. Woodville,” she said composedly. “Please excuse us, Dr. Nestor.”
“Mow Dieu!” Max slapped his thigh in the high ecstasy of an artist. “I am, then, perfect!”
Marusa stared at him—and I saw fear growing in her eyes. With that automatic gallantry of his race, he threw Nestor’s light overcoat, which he had been carrying hitherto, across the shadowed crystal coffin, and stepped swiftly forward so that the girl never had a chance to see that horrible white face.
“Who are you? You are not Dr, Nestor!”
She clung to me.
“It is a friend,” I said in a low voice—“Gaston Max . . . Marusa Yburg.”
Max bowed.
“I have enjoyed the honour of admiring Mademoiselle,” he said, “but never until now that of speaking to her.”
There was an electrical moment, then:
“But Dr. Nestor-” Marusa began.
“Has gone away, dear Mile. Yburg. I am impersonating him. It is only business. Until I met you I had succeeded!”
Marusa stared as if entranced.
“You are very wonderful-” she declared.
Gaston Max seized and kissed her hand.
“You are truly adorable,” he replied. “Quick! Where is Lonergan? What do we do?”
“We join him quickly.”
Marusa bit her lip—and I realized that she was dangerously tensed up.
“Where?”
“Follow me. It’s hell for leather. But we have a chance!” . . .
And so presently, our going unchallenged, we found ourselves upon an ancient staircase. Down we went, and down. Presently, came a memory. We had reached a point where a narrow flight of steps descended on the left, whilst rather farther ahead a second flight led upward.
The Bat Room! Those ascending steps led to that gloomy place where the flying suits were kept!
“I learned the truth tonight,” Marusa exclaimed suddenly—and I realized that what she had to say lay at the root of her suppressed hysteria. “Anubis is a fiend! He’s going to destroy the world! . . .”
Firmly I grasped her shoulders and held her.
“You are a wonderfully brave little lady,” I whispered. “I understand . . .”
Still holding her, I stopped short in my stride. Max pulled up.
A low, wailing sound had broken the silence of those subterranean passages! I felt Marusa grow tense.
“Someone is flying in!” she murmured. “Oh, please God, he can see it through! Quick! Down here!”
We hurried down those narrow steps on our left. In a small, square, dimly lighted room—obviously an old dungeon—we paused. On the stairs and in the passages we had followed so far an unnatural moonlight had prevailed. This place was lighted differently.
Our hurried entrance, followed by silence, provoked a vague rustling. ... I looked about me. The room was lined with glass cases. It was insufferably hot. I saw eyes watching me! . . .
“Spiders!” Max hissed—“Giant spiders!”
“Ssh!” Marusa clutched him. “For heaven’s sake . . .”
This was the home of those “noxious creatures” to which I had heard Richter refer. But, swamping the horror of my surroundings and claiming priority of attention, was Marusa’s expression—“please God, he can see it through!”
What could she have meant?
I became aware of an indefinable throbbing sensation.
In a tense silence I looked about me. My attention was swiftly arrested.
A man, stripped to trousers and vest, gagged and bound, lay in a shadowy corner!
Then, dimly, came a sound of voices.
Marusa grasped my hand.
One voice asserted itself. The speaker drew nearer '—nearer. I heard footsteps—a dim, vaguely familiar booming. There was now a definite throbbing in my ears.
“Straight up the steps, Professor. I shall join you in a moment.”
Mme. Yburg!
Imagination—or reasoning—told me the truth. She had gone into Baden-Baden to meet three of the visitors. It had been Nestor’s job to bring Dr. Schreiber along to the rendezvous! He had failed. . . . Discovery was a matter of minutes!
. . . “This way, Sir Rathbone. I must wait for his Chinese Excellency! Straight up the steps. . . .”
At last came silence again. But the throbbing continued.
“Quick! It’s now or never!”
Helter-skelter we followed Marusa. Up the moonlighted corridor, left, and up the stair to that place I had mentally docketed as the Bat Room. . . .
Out from the dark pit I had formerly noted, a man was climbing. He was apparently clad in aluminium! His head resembled that of a knight, vizor down. He stepped off the ladder. I shrank back.
“A flight controller is a terrifying object, I know,” said Marusa. “But his platform is exposed to the energy waves and the suit is for his protection.”
The aluminium man raised his vizor.
It was Lonergan!
“Oh, my God! how thankful I am!” cried Max emotionally. “My dear friend! But—what does it all mean ?”
“It means,” Lonergan panted, his face wet with perspiration, “that Woodville can’t talk Canadian. I can. So Marusa here gave me the job. My predecessor’s lashed up in the spider cellar.”
“But, Lonergan!” I cried. “Even now . . .” “Listen! It’s easy! A child could operate any of the machines here! And Marusa got the flight controller to explain everything. Then I bashed him on the head. Don’t waste time. Explain a flying suit to Max. I’m going back to the controls.”
Lowering the vizor, Lonergan turned and slowly climbed down into the pit. Dazedly I saw him disappear—little realizing that he thought he had looked his last upon us; never suspecting that I watched a very gallant gentleman going uncomplainingly to what he believed to be certain death.
CHAPTER XXIV - THE DAY
1
Marusa, obviously, was flight leader. She knew the sailing marks. Max had quickly grasped the principle of those wonderful flying suits with their simple, foolproof gear. A toss of a coin decided our order. Max followed Marusa—then I—and last, of necessity, Lonergan.
Max turned aside. Marusa threw her arms around me. She was deathly pale.
“My mother/” she whispered. “I can’t believe it. . . . Oh, God, I can’t believe it!”
Then she raised those beautiful, tearless eyes to me.
“In case there’s any hitch”—her conquest of herself was wonderful—“good-bye!” . . .
I have only the dimmest recollection of her actual departure. I don’t recall seeing her step into that strange, self-adjusting suit—there were six of them in the room. But I remember noticing the blue light spring up across the chasm—the sound of deep, unearthly booming as Lonergan turned on the power wave. . . .
Hazily, too, I sometimes get a fleeting picture of a winged thing gliding out and down . . . then flashing swiftly upward past me.
“She has pluck, that one!” Gaston Max’s hand was on my shoulder. “Her poor little life has been turned topsy-turvy.”
I couldn’t look at him for a moment—nor speak.
“For her, as for us,” he went on, “even now there is only the chance of the .75-”
Then, I turned.
He was holding a small apparatus in his hand which resembled a very compact headpiece.
“She threw it down,” he added simply, “before she went.”
The deep booming continued.
“We are wasting time, Woodville. Good-bye, my friend—until we meet again!”
He moved a lever in the rack below that long beam upon which the bat suits were suspended. The one beneath which he stood dropped and enveloped him ... I saw him making the adjustments. The great, hideous thing slowly descended to the stone floor. The wings opened.
I saw the blue light beyond. I saw the spasmodic movement of Max’s feet against the steel rail. . . .
Out he swept—and down. Up, at rocket speed, he flashed past me.
That deep roar in the pit continued. Lonergan was keeping the power on for me.
I stepped toward the third suit. I stopped.
Beside the headpiece discarded by Marusa a second headpiece lay!
It was that which Max had found in the pocket of Nestor’s coat! . . .
A magnificent, theatrical gesture, you may say? Truly Gallic and in the best d’Artagnan manner? I agree on all four counts. But it must have been a high honour to have won the friendship of a M. d’Artagnan.
There was a sort of numbness claiming my brain. The unendurable throbbing—which, now, I knew to be produced by colossally powerful plants installed in Felsenweir—added to that subterranean booming, began to daze me.
Automatically, I moved again toward the third “bat.” ...
Running footsteps sounded on stone stairs!
I hesitated—and was lost.
Mme. Yburg ran in!
2
At sight, and in spite of my frame of mind, I recognized a change in her.
The mantle of ice which she wore had been melted. Her natural pallor was intensified. Her eyes were like jewels in shadow.
As always, she was perfectly gowned, meticulously groomed—but the ghostlike psychic hands twitched nervously, fingers opening and closing. Remembering Marusa as last I had seen her, every line, every contour, every little mannerism spoke to me intimately. My heart went out to this distracted woman.